To borrow a phrase, it's that most wonderful time of the year – the days are becoming longer, temperatures are rising and a fresh season of NBA action awaits.
Here's a brief overview of what we can expect in the 2016/17 edition of the world's greatest sporting league.
Warriors and Cavaliers. Book it.
Barring catastrophic injury or some sort of natural disaster, it will be last year's finalists Cleveland joining the Golden State as the last two teams standing for the third consecutive time come the end of June next year.
If the Warriors weren't firm favourites to return to the big show following their record-breaking 73-win season, the improbable addition of the 'Slim Reaper' Kevin Durant means you can throw away the pencil and add them in ink to your brackets.
Durant's defection to the Bay Area to combine powers with the otherworldly Steph Curry means now Golden State have two of the top three best players in the entire league, and is made all the more baffling when you consider General Manager Joe Lacob was able to pull it off with minimal collateral damage.
While the Cavaliers haven't made the off-season splash of their adversaries, they've nevertheless managed to retain the core of their giant-killing 2016 champion squad.
Veteran Mike Dunleavy adds some depth at small forward and some valuable long-range shooting, while the 'Birdman' Chris Andersen bring Finals experience and further bolsters their rim protection.
And yeah, they still have that LeBron guy – the best player in the game.
LeBron James and Steph Curry are set to resume their rivalry atop the NBA (Getty file)
So which teams are most capable of pushing the incumbents?
Surveying the bleak landscape of competitive teams across the Eastern Conference leaves little hope for any finals representative other than The King and his Cavs.
Don’t let anyone talk you into believing that the New York Knicks signings of Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah will amount to anything more than a decent NBA 2K17 option, the medical staff are going to have their hands full at The Garden.
Be similarly skeptical of the Chicago Bulls – Rajon Rondo and Dwyane Wade may look like marquee acquisitions on paper, but a backcourt with a combined career 28% shooting from three-point range won't get it done into today's long-ball dominant league.
Their stiffest competition is likely to come from the resurgent Boston Celtics. A cohesive defensive juggernaut moulded by one of the NBA's most visionary young minds in coach Brad Stevens, GM Danny Ainge is shaping a youth movement which will contend for years to come and they finally have their centrepiece in the freshly-inked Al Horford.
Looking westward, the powerhouse franchise that is the San Antonio Spurs will always be in the vicinity of contention, and not even the loss of the greatest power forward of all time will prevent that.
The league certainly won’t be the same without one Tim Duncan, but two-time champion Pau Gasol is an effective means of filling that void, and Kawhi Leonard's play is certain to take another leap forward.
However, age has reduced the threat of lynchpins Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili considerably, and they will struggle to keep pace over the course of a seven game series as the rounds delve deeper.
The Clippers will pose a few questions by sheer strength of their formidable starting five, but GM/Coach Doc Rivers has yet to adequately address their glaring depth issues, and another heart-wrenching Clipper-esque playoff exit likely beckons.
Which brings us to Steven Adams and the Thunder…
Another unfortunate result of Durant's shift to the Warriors is the elimination of the Thunder as their primary competition for the Western Conference, with what looked to be the start of a budding rivalry effectively nullified by Durant's subtraction.
But it's all roses for our Steven.
New Zealand's favourite basketball son has seen the nation awash in royal blue and orange, with everyday Kiwis rushing to embrace Oklahoma City as their default team after his break-out season in 2015/16.
The delightfully unfiltered seven-footer anchored a stifling Thunder defense during a playoff run which saw them on the cusp of a Finals appearance, before brutally conceding a 3-1 series lead to the Warriors.
New Zealand's Steven Adams is primed to take another giant leap in 2016/17 (Getty file)
And the role of the Rotorua product is set to increase even further in 2016/17, particularly at the offensive end of the court where the Thunder will need him, in tandem with fellow 'stache bro' Enes Kanter, to help fill the interior void left by Serge Ibaka's departure to the Orlando Magic, leaving Russell Westbrook free to unleash his special brand of controlled (for the most part) chaos.
If pre-season indications are anything to go by, coach Billy Donovan will be shouldering him with considerably more responsibility, with Adams tallying 13 shot attempts per game for 18.5 points, 10 rebounds, and 2.0 blocks over his final two warm up games leading into the Thunder's opener against the Sixers in Philadelphia on Thursday (NZT).
While pre-season isn’t always the most accurate indication of regular season trends, we should still see Adams averaging a double-double in points and rebounds, punctuated by a couple of blocks per night.
Playing in the final year of his rookie deal with the salary cap set to increase again in the next off-season, Adams is going to cash in heavily on that production - a new contract in the vicinity of $US80 million ($NZ112 million) over at least four years is well within the realms of possibility, which would comfortably make him New Zealand's highest-earning sportsperson.
And he's still only 23 years old. Strap in and enjoy the ride.
Newshub.
